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Archive for the Spacecraft Design category

February 26, 2024

Dream Chaser

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Wikipedia dicit:

Dream Chaser is an American reusable lifting-body spaceplane being developed by Sierra Space. Originally intended as a crewed vehicle, the Dream Chaser Space System is set to be produced after the Dream Chaser Cargo System cargo variant is operational. The crewed variant is planned to carry up to seven people and cargo to and from low Earth orbit.

The cargo Dream Chaser is designed to resupply the International Space Station with both pressurized and unpressurized cargo. It is intended to launch vertically on the Vulcan Centaur rocket and autonomously land horizontally on conventional runways. A proposed version to be operated by ESA would launch on an Arianespace vehicle.

Video credit: Sierra Space

 

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January 30, 2024

Starship Mission

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Wikipedia dicit:

Starship is an American two-stage super heavy lift launch vehicle under development by the aerospace company SpaceX. It is currently the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown. Starship is intended to be fully reusable, which means both stages will be recovered after a mission and reused.

The Starship launch vehicle is designed to supplant SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, expand SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation, and launch crews to both low Earth orbit and Mars. The vehicle is fundamental to SpaceX’s ambition of colonizing Mars. SpaceX plans to use Starship vehicles as tankers, refueling other Starships to allow missions to geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars. A planned lunar lander variant of Starship was contracted by NASA to land astronauts on the Moon as part of the Artemis program by 2025, later delayed to September 2026.

Starship consists of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft, which are both powered by Raptor engines, which burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Both stages are constructed primarily of stainless steel, instead of the carbon composite used in a series of prior designs. The booster is designed to use its engines to slow itself down, before being caught by a pair of mechanical arms attached to the launch tower. The Starship spacecraft is designed to be protected during atmospheric reentry by its thermal protection system, using a ‘belly flop’ maneuver where the spacecraft turns from a horizontal to a vertical position from which it lands using its engines.

SpaceX has stated that a long-term goal for the Starship system is to achieve frequent space launches at low cost. Development follows an iterative and incremental approach involving test flights of prototype vehicles which are often destructive. The first flight test of the full Starship system took place on 20 April 2023, lifting-off with three engines out and ending four minutes after launch due to a loss of control, resulting in the destruction of the launch vehicle. The second flight test of the vehicle took place on 18 November 2023, achieving stage separation with the Super Heavy booster exploding roughly 30 seconds later following multiple engine failures during its boostback burn. The upper stage was lost nearly eight minutes after launch prior to reaching orbit.

Video credit: SpaceX

 

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January 28, 2024

Inflatable Habitat Burst Pressure Test

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Wikipedia dicit:

Inflatable habitats or expandable habitats are pressurised tent-like structures capable of supporting life in outer space whose internal volume increases after launch. They have frequently been proposed for use in space applications to provide a greater volume of living space for a given mass.

The first formal design and manufacture of an inflatable space habitat was in 1961 with a space station design produced by Goodyear (although this design was never flown). A proposal released in 1989 by Johnson Space Center’s Man Systems Division outlined a 16 metres (52 ft) diameter spherical habitat lunar outpost which was partially buried in the lunar surface.

The construction of an inflatable space habitat is determined by its design objectives. However common elements include interwoven layers of highly durable materials such as Kevlar and mylar around a flexible air bladder which is used to retain an atmosphere. The shape of the module is maintained by the pressure difference between the internal atmosphere and the outside vacuum. The inflatable Bigelow Aerospace modules have an internal core which provides structural support during its launch into orbit.

Video credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

 

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December 24, 2023

3D-printed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine

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Wikipedia dicit:

A rotating detonation engine (RDE) is an engine using a form of pressure gain combustion, where one or more detonations continuously travel around an annular channel. Computational simulations and experimental results have shown that the RDE has potential in transport and other applications.

In detonative combustion, the flame front expands at supersonic speed. It is theoretically more efficient than conventional deflagrative combustion by as much as 25%. Such an efficiency gain would provide major fuel savings.

The basic concept of an RDE is a detonation wave that travels around a circular channel (annulus). Fuel and oxidizer are injected into the channel, normally through small holes or slits. A detonation is initiated in the fuel/oxidizer mixture by some form of igniter. After the engine is started, the detonations are self-sustaining. One detonation ignites the fuel/oxidizer mixture, which releases the energy necessary to sustain the detonation. The combustion products expand out of the channel and are pushed out of the channel by the incoming fuel and oxidizer.

Video credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

 

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November 1, 2023

Lockheed Martin’s NTR Engine

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Wikipedia dicit:

A nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) is a type of thermal rocket where the heat from a nuclear reaction, often nuclear fission, replaces the chemical energy of the propellants in a chemical rocket. In an NTR, a working fluid, usually liquid hydrogen, is heated to a high temperature in a nuclear reactor and then expands through a rocket nozzle to create thrust. The external nuclear heat source theoretically allows a higher effective exhaust velocity and is expected to double or triple payload capacity compared to chemical propellants that store energy internally.

NTRs have been proposed as a spacecraft propulsion technology, with the earliest ground tests occurring in 1955. The United States maintained an NTR development program through 1973 when it was shut down for various reasons, for example to focus on Space Shuttle development. Although more than ten reactors of varying power output have been built and tested, as of 2023, no nuclear thermal rocket has flown.

Whereas all early applications for nuclear thermal rocket propulsion used fission processes, research in the 2010s has moved to fusion approaches. The Direct Fusion Drive project at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is one such example, although “energy-positive fusion has remained elusive”. In 2019, the U.S. Congress approved US$125 million in development funding for nuclear thermal propulsion rockets.

In May 2022 DARPA issued an RFP for the next phase of their Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) nuclear thermal engine program. This follows on their selection, in 2021, of an early engine design by General Atomics and two spacecraft concepts from Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin. The next phases of the program will focus on the design, development, fabrication, and assembly of a nuclear thermal rocket engine. In July 2023, Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to build the spacecraft and BWX Technologies (BWXT) will develop the nuclear reactor. A launch is expected in 2027.

Video credit: Lockheed Martin

 

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October 26, 2023

RAMFIRE Nozzle Test

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NASA dicit:

Under the agency’s Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity, engineers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, partnered with Elementum 3D, in Erie, Colorado, to create a weldable type of aluminum that is heat resistant enough for use on rocket engines. Compared to other metals, aluminum is lower density and allows for high-strength, lightweight components. However, due to its low tolerance to extreme heat and its tendency to crack during welding, aluminum is not typically used for additive manufacturing of rocket engine parts – until now.

Meet NASA’s latest development under the Reactive Additive Manufacturing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or RAMFIRE, project. Funded under NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), RAMFIRE focuses on advancing lightweight, additively manufactured aluminum rocket nozzles. The nozzles are designed with small internal channels that keep the nozzle cool enough to prevent melting.

Video credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

 

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